My early childhood was spent in Newark, New Jersey, but my family moved to Denver when I was 12.

Since 1985, I have written about contemporary Jewish practice and the Jewish community.

The Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my family, in my heart.

I got nice rejections explaining that historical fiction was a difficult sell. But I kept trying.

Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?

The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.

The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life [...] the stronger the daughter.

One of his tears fell in my mouth, where it became a blue sapphire, source of strength, source of strength and eternal hope.

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.

My husband, Jim, converted to Judaism just before our wedding.

One of my great secrets was knowing I had the power to make her smile.

Boredom is not far from bliss: it is bliss seen from the shores of pleasure.

We touch the last reality directly in prayer.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

I think Gore does have to worry. He is tied to Bill Clinton. We know that there were telephone calls that he made from his office. We know that there were visits to the Buddhist temple.

It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.

Woman is essentially unpeaceful, like the cat, however well she may have trained herself to present an appearance of peace.

It is well to open one's mind but only as a preliminary to closing it ... for the supreme act of judgment and selection.

The sexual abuse and exploitation of children is one of the most vicious crimes conceivable, a violation of mankind's most basic duty to protect the innocent.

I played soccer, and I was the kid who ran the wrong way, or I was pretending to be some sort of zebra and I would flail my arms and kick up my legs.

You can't make homes out of human beings.